of Magistrates and Superintendents of Police,.. 181 of Master and Journeyman Bakers,........ 185 of Butchers and Fishmongers,.. of Thomas George, Agent of the Society for the of James Bridges, Esq., Rev. Duncan Macfar- A Sketch of the Proceedings of the several sessions of the ... 267 PART I. THE SABBATH AS AN INSTITUTION. CHAPTER I. PRELIMINARY REMARKS. THE SABBATH-This is the topic in discussion. But what is the question at issue in respect to it? Till this is ascertained, we can make no progress in the discussion. I will attempt to state it. And first, I will state what it is not.* 1. It is not whether men ought to be holy every day; to have "Holiness to the Lord" written on all they have and are; to carry their religion into their business, so as to make their business part of their religion, and do all they do to the glory of God, and in this sense keep all days holy; for in this, the friends and the opponents of the Sabbath are agreed. At all events, no friends of the Sabbath deny it. True, their opponents sometimes say they do. Nay, they even insist, at times, that their zeal for the observance of one day in seven, as holy, is virtually that they may have the freer license to sin during the remainder of the week. But it is not so. Such repre * The arguments noticed in this chapter were all urged in the Convention. sentations are injurious and false. What friend of the Sabbath, if a minister, does not preach that men ought to be holy every day and every where, as well as on the Sabbath and in the sanctuary? And when he urges the observance of one day in seven as a Sabbath, who is there, be he minister or layman, that does not do it, in order that, by carrying its hallowing instructions and influences with them into the ordinary avocations of life, men may be led to serve God in them as well as in their religious duties, and so be made the more holy, rather than the less so, during the other six days of the week? And who, that knows any thing of a real observance of the Sabbath, does not know by experience, that such are its actual tendency and effect? Or if, in any case, the tendency and effect of its observance seem otherwise, and men do cast its restraints behind them, and take occasion from it to sin the more the moment they enter on the week, who are they that do it? The men that honestly advocate and keep the Sabbath, or those only that play the hypocrite in regard to it? The men to whom the Sabbath is a delight, and the holy of the Lord honorable, or those to whom it is a yoke, and a "burden," and a curse, and who in their hearts wish there were none? The latter, plainly. Be this, however, as it may, the question at issue between the friends and opponents of the Sabbath is not whether men ought to serve God always and every where, and so keep all days holy, -for this the friends of the Sabbath most fully believe and teach, but whether keeping all days holy, forbids, the setting apart of one day in seven as a Sabbath; i. e. as a day of rest from the ordinary avocations of life, and of special de votion to the duties of religion. And to pretend this, is to say that setting apart particular times to particular duties, so that those duties may be the more orderly and profitably discharged, is inconsistent with keeping all time holy; whereas, in point of fact, it may be, and is, only a more effectual, as well as common sense arrangement for this very end. Bu 2. The question touching the Sabbath is not whether Christ taught a higher and purer morality than Moses and the prophets. That he did, I know, is claimed. It is said in terms, that "the standard of morality under the gospel dispensation is infinitely higher than it was under the old ;" and the inference is, that the Sabbath is therefore now set aside. the fact asserted admits of question much more the inference. When one (Matt. xxii. 36-40) came to Christ with the inquiry, "Master, which is the great commandment of the law," his answer was, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it-Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." And then he added, "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets". a plain declaration, that these two great requirements of supreme love to God and impartial love to man, covering, as they do, the whole field of obligation and duty, are not the revelation of a new and higher standard, unknown to Moses and the prophets, but a summary only of what they themselves had taught. Indeed, so true is this, that, on another occasion, (Matt. vii. 12,) when Christ gave his disciples that golden rule, which in its wide sweep comprehends all obligation |